Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Patient \Pa"tient\, n.
   1. ONe who, or that which, is passively affected; a passive
      recipient.

            Malice is a passion so impetuous and precipitate
            that often involves the agent and the patient.
                                                  --Gov. of
                                                  Tongue.

   2. A person under medical or surgical treatment; --
      correlative to physician or nurse.

            Like a physician, . . . seeing his patient in a
            pestilent fever.                      --Sir P.
                                                  Sidney.

   {In patient}, a patient who receives lodging and food, as
      treatment, in a hospital or an infirmary.

   {Out patient}, one who receives advice and medicine, or
      treatment, from an infirmary.